A wise man once warned me “The Liar, the Destroyer of Worlds will hide a single lie under a mountain of truth, or a single truth under a mountain of lies.”  I kept this maxim in mind when a hater once told me “Jews contribute absolutely nothing to the human condition.”

In their sick mind, the statement was self-evident, a fait accompli worthy of no further investigation.  Righteous men and women reflexively refute such bile, but should we?  This is, after all, evil speaking in sultry tones.

I asked myself, if the Liar, the Destroyer of Worlds does in fact hide a single truth under a mountain of lies, is this antisemitic trope hiding a truth we are all reflexively over looking.

After a lifetime of consideration, I conclude it is.

Don’t shake your head at “absolutely nothing”.  Maybe I am wrong.  Maybe I am right.  I can’t judge myself, so I throw myself at the mercy of the court.  Judge for
yourself.

I carefully read and carefully consider what the Torah has to report about all the times Divine Intervention occurred in the history of the Children of Israel.  I take great care not to imagine anything where it does not belong.  In doing so I observe a recurring theme in the cornerstone moments that lead, inextricably to Judaism.

Three in particular stand out.  All three involve flames which do not burn.  First, there is the bush which was engulfed in flames but did not burn.  Second there was the Shakinah Glory, a column of fire which erupted from the desert floor, fed on no visible fuel, which guided the Israelites through the desert to Mount Sinai.  Next, there is the sacred Temple lamp which, though it ran dry of oil, stayed lit for eight days.

Mind you, I get it, doubters will have too many objections to refute here, and refuting objections are not my aim.  I am just making an observation about the relationship between energy and doing absolutely nothing.

I don’t know what you read into these three miracles, but I hear God imploring us to stop burning everything for our energy.  I read a warning of the ages.  Chalk it up to too much liberal television, but the common theme in all three miracles is energy which does not burn.

What, the Skeptics will cry, has any of this have to do with absolutely nothing?  Everything, I insist.

You see, we have at long last arrived in the 21^st century where it is possible to measure and observe the impact human behavior is having on the environment.  Personally, I believe the environmentalists are a bit like Chicken Little but, when we do the math, they are just ahead of their time.  Project human population over the near horizon and we realize the post-industrial lifestyle we presently enjoy in the developed world does not scale well across a population of 8 billion.

If population grows at the same pace in the next century that it has during the last, then the planet will be home to 49 billion people before we know it.  Demographers insist that will never happen, that population growth is slowing down, but demographers have been wrong since Malthus first cried “We’re all going to die!”

With no Thomas Malthus to compel us to find a solution, the environmental movement has enlisted Greta Thunberg who, puts us all to shame.

If we all listen to Greta, which the Socialist Greens insist we must, then we will all do something.  Every scheme in the world is presently being attempted to reduce carbon emissions.  Everything from fantastic, new batteries, to wind farms, to wave generators, even to spreading dust low earth orbit is being contemplated to save us all from imminent doom.

But what if, instead of doing a lot of very expensive something, we all instead do absolutely nothing?

Boggle?

I thought so.  

I am talking about the Sabbath.  Not a day off from work where we all ride jet skis and take cross country road trips to discover ourselves, an orthodox sabbath like the Rabbis of Arabia have instructed us all to do from the start.

I think I can hear Greta brewing up. Hold on to your hat, Greta.  Hear me out.

Orthodox Jews observe an orthodox sabbath, which means they personally perform no work, nor utilize any mechanism or machine which does any work. Orthodox Jews are as committed to doing absolutely nothing on the sabbath as Janas are at sweeping the sidewalks of all critters before they take their next step.

Personally, I think they both go father in observing the tenets of their religion than is spiritually required, but I am willing to go to any length to please Greta.   If nothing else, maybe she won’t turn on me personally.

What, the Skeptics will demand, will observing the sabbath do for global warming?  Absolutely nothing, of course.  And in the case of global warming absolutely nothing is the surest way of reducing global emissions.  I can prove that with science!

Get your calculators out.  It’s time to teach Greta math.  One day is what proportion of a seven-day week?  One day is 14.2% of the time.  Doing absolutely nothing 14.2% of the time reduces global emissions by 14.2% immediately. 

Not tomorrow.  Not in a decade.  Not after trillions of dollars in tax credits.  Not after a college education.  Not after adequately funded meteorological studies.  Not after quantum computers can allow us to accurately model the atmosphere.

Absolutely nothing reduces global emissions now.

Mind you, I am not at all convinced Greta knows what she is talking about, but that doesn’t mean I am convinced we aren’t facing an ecological crisis.  I just think the Socialist Greens are exploiting an epiphany we are all experienced.

The epiphany will be found in the observation we can now confirm human behavior has a systemic impact on the environment we live in, we depend on for life.  No matter what we burn, the byproduct will quickly concentrate in the atmosphere. Unless you can name a single gas which is inert in the atmosphere, I predict CO2 is just a passing fad.

I am convinced we have to put an end to combustion entirely.

The burning times must end.

I am also convinced that the answer to our problem was provided to us, encoded in a series of miracles experienced and documented by Arabian nomads who are accused of contributing absolutely nothing to the human condition.

Absolutely nothing, I am convinced, is precisely what we need to do to save Mankind from environmental catastrophe in our generation.  But why stop at 14.2% of the time?  If every nation in the world made observing the Sabbath, just as the Rabbis insist we must, would that not be showing favor to the Jews?

Obviously, that is true.  But Christians observe the Sabbath on Sunday, or at least are supposed to observe the Sabbath on Sunday.  Judging by the number of cars filling church parking lots on Sunday, I don’t think Christians are taking the Holy Bible literally.  Add to Christians all the Muslims of the world who, like the Jews and Christians, are pillars of the Genesis Family.  

Muslims observe the Sabbath on Friday.

Between the three major religions of the Genesis Family, we are talking about a three-day weekend which, if observed in an orthodox manner, would reduce global emissions this weekend by 42.8%.

Be patient with me.  I am just doing Greta’s math for her.  The poor girl looks as if she is about to burst every time she opens her mouth.  It is for her own good.  And ours.  But don’t take my word for it.  Let’s turn the math over to the Skeptics.  How much do they insist we must reduce global emissions in order to save the planet?  

Reliable data on that is scarce, so I resorted to asking Chat GPT.  According to Chat GPT, global mean temperatures this year rose 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit as compared to the “long term” average calculated between 1951 and 1980!  Poor Greta.  She is not going to handle that news well at all.

Geologists are all laughing inside since they know thirty years does not a long-term trend make, not in climate, not in oceanography and certainly not in geology, but Greta is brewing up, so we’ll play along.

According to Chat GPT, we must reduce carbon dioxide by 50% of 2010 levels in order to reduce mean global temperature by 1 degree.  Mind you, we just raised temperatures by 1.6 degrees, so we clearly have our work cut out for us.

Chat GPT confuses matters further by informing me that the “Paris Agreement” was agreed to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees, which, as I observed above, we have already failed to do.  I am beginning to see why Greta is beginning to panic.  But that is not where the confusion lies.  The confusion lies over the fact that the Paris Agreement only calls for a 43% reduction in greenhouse emissions by 2030.

Obviously, Chat GPT isn’t correcting its own homework.  Chat GPT just informed me that we must reduce Co2 by 50% just to reduce global mean temperatures by a single degree and confirmed that the Paris Agreement only mandates a 43% reduction.

I am beginning to understand Greta after all.

After asking Chat GPT to plot carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere in the last century, I am informed Chat GPT can’t create charts. Happily, Chat GPT can point us all to a bewildering array of charts that all show Co2 going off the same said charts.

I now understand why children like Greta are in such a state.  Great, my darling girl, you are suffering from a public education. 

Your teachers, like Chat GPT, were taught by teachers who relegated religious texts, like the Torah, to obscuration because they are “too religious”, so even your
teachers cannot be blamed.  But trust me, Greta, the solutions we require are all there in black and white.  Don’t ask where the answers came from, your teachers will not approve of the answer.

Mankind does indeed have a problem.  No matter what we burn, it will immediately compound in the atmosphere and alter climate chemistry.  I offer the most immediate solution, which will cost us nothing and which requires no technology to implement, is to observe the Sabbath just as we were instructed to do.

Given the choice between extinction and a three-day weekend, every weekend, I am in favor of a three-day weekend, every weekend.

What say you, Greta?

If Greta’s handlers respond that a three-day weekend, every weekend would be too damaging to the economy, they haven’t run the numbers under the extinction scenario.  

You think I am being alarmist in raising extinction as a possibility?  I am not.  I am not even raising extinction as a possibility.  Historically, it has been the world’s socialist who keep fixating on extinction scenarios.  And because the National Socialist Worker’s Party started a war of extermination only recently, I advise we all pay attention when that panic button is getting mashed for any reason.

Panic in the intelligentsia never ends well.

For the record, though, the objections of economist are wrong.  A three-day weekend, every weekend will not impact individual incomes as long as the four-day work week still yields forty hours of work.  Granted, that converts the standard workday to ten hours instead of eight, but the majority of jobs these days do not involve the hard, physical labor of the past.

Personally, I am in favor of a workday with two, five-hour shifts, and a two hour break in between.  With a two-hour break, one could run errands, even make a doctor’s appointment any day of the week.  Granted, my workday would otherwise leave little room for after work fun, but truthfully, aren’t workdays pretty much ruined anyway?  Trust me, you can have plenty of fun during a two-hour break.

I just don’t know if Greta would approve.

If turning off all machines sounds absurd to you, stay a while. We don’t have to go to the absurd limits.  As it turns out, the majority of all harmful carbon emissions are produced by passenger cars, not industry.  All we have to do is give mother nature rest.

That is, after all, what the Sabbath is all about.  There is no weakness in the need to rest, only strength. Judging from the charts Chat GPT just dug up for me online, we don’t have any alternative to reduce global emissions.  Presently, the total reduction to global emissions we are experiencing after doing all we are already doing is less than zero.  Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere is rising at an accelerating pace.

I suggest we do absolutely nothing about it or Greta will be proven correct.

If the leaders of the world’s developed economies all agree to enforce a three-day weekend, one which encompasses the Sabbath of Islam, Judaism and Christianity, doing absolutely nothing would, theologically speaking, reduce global emissions by 42.6% this week.

Not next year.  Not next century.  This week.

We can leave all the power plants on, the hospitals can keep working, cops, fire departments, all essential services.  If we only turn off the personal transportation sector on the Sabbath, the climate crisis is solved.  All by doing absolutely nothing.

Believers the world over should challenge Greta and their kind with the absolute facts.  

Wait for their response.  Universally, they will all reject the idea because it is “too religious”.  Believers will all be told we can’t make people observe religious traditions.

And there, in that moment, you will be staring pure, unadulterated evil in the face.  The Liar, the Destroyer of worlds would rather human life perish than come to God.

The math does not lie.  Climate alarmists do.  But I did not write this essay to settle Greta’s mind, did I?  No, I wrote this essay to find the single truth hiding under a mountain of antisemitic tropes. 

If Jews do indeed contribute absolutely nothing to the human condition, as racists insist, and doing absolutely nothing saves Mankind from imminent doom, did the Jews not just save Mankind from doom as prophecy predicts?

I owe racists like that a thorough answer, but here, in a summary defense of the Jewish people, I evoke absolutely nothing in their defense.

Shabat Shalom,

An Unknown Soldier